A Load of Papal Bull

I heard an interview on the radio today with Michelle Bachmann. During her rant against President Obama's decision on birth control, she characterized the regulation as an attack on religious freedom and democracy. But while pretending to call for religious freedom and democracy, Bachmann is actually giving a foreign dictator the power to control the most intimate part of American life.

The big stink began when American Catholic bishops complained about regulations requiring employers to pay for birth control. Obama relented and said that the insurance companies would pay instead. Why do the bishops oppose contraception? There's a papal bull called Humanae Vitae. It was issued by Pope Paul VI in 1968 and condemns artificial birth control.

In the Catholic Church one man dictates all policy. Tomorrow the pope could issue another bull and say birth control is fine and is necessary because we have fulfilled the commandments of the Bible. We have been so fruitful and so successful at multiplying that there are now seven billion of us. To be good stewards of the earth, he could say, we must prevent overpopulation. He could cite Leviticus and Exodus and justify birth control on the basis of the idea that the fields must be allowed to lie fallow for a time: once we've had two kids, we can use birth control. The bishops would reverse course and accept Obama's regulation the next day, with the proviso that they would only pay for contraception for married couples with children. Yes, this whole argument is that arbitrary and capricious.

It's estimated that between two-thirds and 99% of all American Catholics are using or have used artificial birth control. The majority of Catholics think the pope is wrong, and if they were allowed to vote on this issue the pope would lose. Several of the bishops themselves have disagreed with the pope on this issue in the past, but have been silenced by threats or replaced.


But, you say, the Church isn't a democracy. The people don't get to vote on this. Sorry, that's just not true. The people do get a vote, and they vote with their feet. That's why Moses left Egypt, Christianity separated from Judaism, why there was a Schism between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, and why Luther had a Reformation. The ban on birth control is a major reason why more than 20 million Americans are lapsed Catholics. That's enough to qualify them as the second-largest denomination in the United States.

Now, on the merits, the scriptural argument against contraception is tenuous a best, usually justified with the injunction to "be fruitful and multiply" and the case of Onan spilling his seed.


Onan's story is particularly interesting: when his brother died the law required him to give offspring to his childless widow to preserve the family line. Onan had sex with her several times, but since he didn't want her children to become his heirs he practiced coitus interruptus, "spilling his seed on the ground." For this Onan was sentenced to death. The Catholic Church cites this in their arguments against contraception and masturbation. But they completely miss the real point of this story.


The crimes Onan committed were lusting after another man's wife, incest, adultery, rape and breach of contract by failing to provide agreed-to natural insemination services. Onan was supposed to deliver the semen into her womb, but spilled it on the ground instead. This says nothing about birth control within marriage, or masturbation for that matter. 


In fact, the Catholic Church does not forbid all birth control—it encourages the use of "natural family planning," an updated version of the rhythm method. By monitoring a woman's cycle, temperature and cervical mucus you can attain 95-99% effectiveness, which rivals artificial means. Only 75-88% is typical, however, which is about the same effectiveness as the withdrawal method that Onan practiced.


If you limit sexual activity to even more specific times of the cycle you can be virtually guaranteed that pregnancy will not result. What is the difference between spilling seed onto the ground and into a womb that you know has no uterine lining and will not receive an egg for two weeks? Well, one could say, you might still get pregnant by a hitch in the woman's cycle or especially hardy sperm. But the same is true of withdrawal, the pill, condoms, diaphragms, and spermicides. All methods of contraception have non-zero failure rates—even the surgical means of tubal ligation and vasectomy.


If avoiding pregnancy by artificial means is a sin, is not the intent to avoid pregnancy by natural means the same sin? After all, if it's God's will that you become pregnant, condoms can break and pills can fail. And if God is demanding fruitfulness, isn't abstinence in marriage is just as much a violation of His will as contraception?


As the religious right keeps telling us, the institution of marriage is having a tough time. It's particularly galling that a pope who's never known the love of a woman thinks he knows what's best for married folks. Sex binds husbands and wives together. Without it they feel unloved, unfulfilled and alone. Just ask Newt Gingrich.


The three main causes of divorce are money, kids and sex. Since sex the papal way causes kids, and kids cost money, one could argue that it all goes back to sex. Couples with too many kids and not enough money are extremely stressed. Now the pope wants to add even more stress by telling these married couples that they can't have sex?


That's a load of papal bull.